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OverTheGeicoE writes "ProPublica has a story on how x-ray scanners became the controversial yet mandatory security fixtures we in the US must now endure. The story title, 'U.S. Government Glossed Over Cancer Concerns As It Rolled Out Airport X-Ray Scanners,' summarizes a substantial part of the article, but not all of it. The story also describes how government attitudes about the scanners went from overwhelmingly negative in the early 1990s to the naive optimism we see today. How did this change occur? The government weakened its regulatory structure for radiation safety in electronic devices, and left defining safety standards to an ANSI committee dominated by scanner producers and users (prison and customs officials). Even after 9/11 there was still great mistrust of x-ray scanners, but nine years of lobbying from scanner manufacturers, panic over failed terrorist attacks, and pressure from legislators advancing businesses in their own districts eventually forced the devices into the airports. The article estimates that 6 to 100 cancers per year will be caused by the x-ray scanners."

Yes, but most of the full-body scanners are millimeter-wave scanners. That's non-ionizing. The headline and summary conveniently blurs this distinction-- it says that X-ray scanners are "mandatory" in US Airports, but thats for baggage, not people.

X-rays arent good for you but mostly is the weak shieleding and poor maintience that is the long term problem. Those 100 people will be the security guards standing by the machines for 40 hours a week for 5 years.

There has been a long debate on this, most of which you can easily find by search engine. These devices do a raster scan with a fairly intense spot beam (most of this radiation goes right through you; the spot beam has to be strong as the signal is actually the fraction scattered off of your skin). The spot beam would be a problem if it was to sit on one location for any length of time, so you are totally reliant on the software to not get a serious dose. That alone is a real worry, as most medical Xray radiation problems are due to software errors. That also means that any repeated glints out of the device (say, by people's metal buttons) are likely to cause problems for nearby agents (as they tend to stand in the same place, and so could get repeated exposures). It also means that just wearing a dosimeter is pretty worthless. The agent's chest might get no glint exposure and their feet or crotch might get a serious one.

The above is pretty much the conventional wisdom. As a physicist, I also worry about the way that they calculated dosage (whole body versus surface exposure) may seriously underestimate the risk, but that worry is not very conventional. If I am right, look for skin cancers to start appearing in frequent flyers in areas normally covered by clothing. Of course, that will take a few years; Michael Chertoff is likely to have retired with his loot by then.

Nice post. Just one correction, at the beam energies used in these devices (50 kVp - 120 kVp), most X-ray photons certainly do not go straight through you. At about 120 kVp, about 75% will get absorbed through the torso - and in the case of 50 kVp, essentially 100% will be absorbed (with only a fraction of a percent getting scattered, as 50 kVp is below the optimal range for Compton scattering in body tissues).

In fact, it was widely stated in the marketing information and propaganda for these scanners that the X-ray beam does not penetrate skin. This statement is patently false at all energies in commercial use. If they can get away with deliberate lies as basic as that, how can you reasonably believe any more difficult claims?

Scanning tools at the hospital have to pass high hurdles to be certified for use. The scanners at the airport were installed such that they circumvented such certification. Do you think it would have been necessary to circumvent the certification if they would have passed?

They are also required to be enclosed in lead lined rooms, with leaded glass, and use lead lined doors and door frames. This is to protect the radiologic technologist, the radiologist, and patients in surrounding corridors and rooms. When anyone must be present in a room when the HE photon gun is activated, they are required to wear full body leaded gowns, and neck collars to protect the thyroid. Patients are also provided shields to cover the torso or thyroid when that region is not being scanned. This

In other cases though, it has a benefit... so long as the project has long-term benefits worth the cost. Like the Hoover Dam was pretty much busy work to get the economy going again (jobs, money flow, pride, etc) and when it was complete it became a large source of electricity.

Or perhaps a bridge, of course assuming it doesn't go to "nowhere," where the long-term fiscal benefits are harder to calculate but still there. Easier travel to a city = less gas used + less traffic + fewer ac

The problem is you get people who are radical Keynesians (not people from Kenya!) who believe spending on something, anything will always be a net benefit.

Well, the point that Keynesians make is that during a demand slump, spending on something, anything will be a net benefit, they don't say that it will ALWAYS be a net benefit. In the current economy, where consumers can't spend because they are debt-constrained, and industry won't spend because there are no customers buying, then government should step in and spend to fill the demand gap and cut taxes to give consumers and industry more spare cash to spend. The corollary to this is during good times, you ra

The Osprey is what you get when the one branch of the military that isn't completely bogged down by inter-service political bullshit about who can use what kind of aircraft to avoid stepping on each other's toes asks for an aircraft that actually suits their needs which turned out to be a difficult thing to deliver in practice (but is working now).

I mean I'm not saying this was a good use of money compared to, say, funding extra science curriculum in high schools across the nation.

Like the Hoover Dam was pretty much busy work to get the economy going again (jobs, money flow, pride, etc) and when it was complete it became a large source of electricity.

Bad example. The Hoover Dam was planned and sent through Congress during the Harding and Coolidge administrations. It was a happy accident that it was built during the 1930s, and Six Companies made out like bandits because they got labor at a much better price than estimated, and lots of it. In fact, the reason it is called the Hoover Dam and not Boulder Dam is because Hoover got the states together to sign the Colorado River Pact in the late teens and early 1920s. And the benefit to the US (and the world) is easily calculated in irrigated land in the southern US and the massive increase in food production that resulted.

A make work project would be about 1/2 the various epidemiological studies that look at cancer rates and power lines. Or locking up drug offenders for life.

The Hoover dam does more than just make electricity: it is part of the system of dams that control the Colorado's propensity to flood uncontrollably, and this control allows a stable agricultural system to flourish, which feeds tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people. You know, rather than the fields being wiped out every ten years, or permanently flooded like the Salton Sea.

Lake Mead is named for the genius from the Bureau of Land Management who made this happen. He was from the government, and he was there to help.

I don't know... at the air ports I've been to the eating area and shops are behind the scanners and such. Getting hired to work there probably requires more security checks than your average McDonalds or grocery store but I doubt it's THAT hard.

Besides, the concerns are usually less along the lines of the FBI's most-wanted list doing something, but some recently converted kid making a suicide run. Such a person might have a clean record.

The problem is the money you're spending is coming out of taxes, which is reducing the amount that would have been invested in other productivity-enhancing or job-producing activities in the economy.

The politicians know this. All that they care about is that the money is being spent in their electorate, and that they are seen by the citizens as being at least partially responsible for bringing it there.

ok. 100 people a year. 10 years. I sincerely doubt the "terrorists" could kill 1000 people in 10 years on US soil.

Perhaps the terrorists are actually hyper intelligent beings who knew all along that if they could only trick us into radiating ourselves out of fear of them and we would do their job for them while they kick back and enjoy some of that great Mideast sun and sand. 1000 dead and all they had to do was say "Boo!"

The summary didn't say 100 DEATHS per year. It said 100 cases of cancer per year. And that was the high side. I'm as anti-scanner as anyone out there, but succumbing to the same style of sensationalist rhetoric as the scanner supporters does our cause no good.

Probably none : the only failed attacks since have used things the scanners would not pick up.. i.e. various explosives

The attacks prior would have been stopped by scanners, but would also have been stopped by much simpler and safer checks...The single most effective anti-terrorist device since 9/11 is the locked door to the cockpit.,,

Don't be so hard on them. Of course they could kill well over 1000 people on US soil in a year. All they need to do is bomb the bloody security checkpoints. There are hundreds of people in close quarters in an unsecured area, just waiting in line to be groped and irradiated. Put a bomber in the middle of that crowd and you've got the biggest vulnerability in the whole damned air travel system.

This is especially true because the "terrorists" largely do not exist. Oh sure, there may be a pissed off radical or two, but that has always been the case. This newest enemy is useful for profit and power however. Seen from that angle, these machines make pefect sense.

ok. 100 people a year. 10 years. I sincerely doubt the "terrorists" could kill 1000 people in 10 years on US soil.

...Except when they killed almost 3000 in one day...

Yep.. they sure did kill 3000 in one day. However the preventative measures to stop them doing this again seems to be killing more that 300 people a year through increased road traffic (and hence car crashes) and (as reported in this article - although this is not news) another 100 or so a year from cancer.

Terrorism is not something you can eradicate (especially if your foreign policy is to continually piss people off), so combatting it is always going to be a trade off/balance between how much hurt you can accept from the terrorists vs how much hurt you will inflict on your own people in the name of "protecting" them.

In this case I find it strange that the solution to stopping the terrorists from killing off US citizens is to institute policies that effectively cause the US government to kill off even more citizens than the terrorists have.

... 10 years ago, and not a single one since. 3000/10 = 300 per year (and falling). In medicine, a drug that saved 300 people per year but killed 100 people per year due to side-effects would never be approved.

ok. 100 people a year. 10 years. I sincerely doubt the "terrorists" could kill 1000 people in 10 years on US soil.

...Except when they killed almost 3000 in one day...

So what?

And before you say I'm being flip or callous, remember this: more than that die every month from lack of medical care. Or this: more than 3000 died on 9/11 from cancer and heart/lung disease. There's no national day of mourning for the 9/11 victims of disease. Or the 9/10 victims. Or the 9/12 victims. And so on.

The only thing that makes the 3000 terror victims special was that they were concentrated in just a few places where large scale acts of vandalism took place. The others had the common decency not to bother the general population by passing away in houses, hospitals, nursing homes and on the street.

Go ahead, take a look at the National Vital Health Statistics and see what kills Americans. Pick any number you can imagine dying every year from terrorism and see what trivial thing beats it. 3000 a year? Peptic ulcers. 5000? Anemia. 20,000? Parkinson's. 45,000? Motor vehicle accidents. 75,000? Alzheimer's.

So in the 11 years since 9/11, including 2001, what's the average deaths by terrorism? Under 300, right? (And that's low because of my terror-repellent rock). That's about the same number as deaths among Eskimo and Native American women in "transport accidents."

My point? We're spending way too much time, causing way to much inconvenience, sacrificing too many liberties, and frankly being way to scared of one thing, when there are far better ways to spend our time, money, national soul, and global reputation on. We've ruined the country all in the cause of innumeracy.

Or did you think it was an accident that then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, in charge of DHS when they made the decision to use the scanners, just happened to have a financial interest in the company that makes the scanners?

In other words, more people will die from exposure to the scanners than would have died from the supposed terrorist attacks they 'protect' us from. And why? Money of course, that is what runs this country (into the ground).

In other words, more people will die from exposure to the scanners than would have died from the supposed terrorist attacks they 'protect' us from. And why? Money of course, that is what runs this country (into the ground).

Sure, but if we didn't have scanners and it was fairly trivial to get through security, they number would skyrocket. That's like saying 'we have this drug that virtually eliminates cancer, but rarely people will die from it". The overall net effect is that more lives will be saved than lost, just it's unfortunate that they can't all be saved. At least if you die from cancer you get to say goodbye to your family.

The US is not filled with terrorists at every corner, just waiting for us to relax airport security so they have a chance to blow up as many Americans as possible. You've fallen into the fear.

Ignoring the fact that there are still ways to get a bomb past security despite these scanners, here's a list of places where you could kill more people, with less security, by blowing up a bomb there instead of on a plane:

Pro Sports Event
Mall
Large classroom auditorium
Popular (i.e. rivalry) High School Sport

Sure, but if we didn't have scanners and it was fairly trivial to get through security, they number would skyrocket.

That's your fear talking. These scanners have only been in place a few years. It's not like there were frequent attacks before that. So what are they preventing? All of this hysteria is caused by our reaction to a singular event over a decade ago; an event these scanners would not have prevented.

Sure, but if we didn't have scanners and it was fairly trivial to get through security, the number would skyrocket.

That's provably false.

No terrorist sees the security at airports and says, "Oh well, I'll just give up, go home and play xbox."Instead he looks for another target that is less well defended and hits that instead.

So why haven't the number of attacks on other targets - like movie theaters and shopping malls or even just sabotage on unguarded train tracks - skyrocketed? The number of such attacks in the last decade is so small that you can count them on one hand with fingers to spare.

I opt out of these things every time I fly. My buddies insist "you get more exposure to radiation flying in the aircraft than you do going through the scanner." They proceed to go right through them.

Amusingly enough I've had an easier time voluntarily subjecting myself to the search than I have ever had when involuntarily being forced into being searched. I travel a lot, single white guy, long hair--most people assume drugs, search accordingly.

At the end of the day though; someone touching my crotch very briefly (trust me, they don't want to be touching me any more than I want to be touched) isn't going to give me cancer.

The US government is acting in the interest of both the insurance companies and the politicly connected makers of the X-Ray machines. They never cared about the safety of the people. They never do. The insurance industry does not want to pay out for airplane crashes, and will roast every traveller like popcorn bags in order for those greedy bastards to keep their money.

One of the main proponents of X-Ray scanners, former Bush-Era Homeland Security Secretary Michael "Jackoff" Chertoff, the man who apparently was too deaf or STUPID to hear and see the hundreds of American citizens trapped in a shopping center in New Orleans, is well-connected [deseretnews.com] to the manufacturers of the body scanners.

So when Bush fell asleep on 9/11 he was not only proving for the nth time in his life that he's a useless fuckoff who shouldn't be trusted to watch grass grow, let alone the security of a natio

It's very simple. Just calmly tell them you want to opt out. By now they are used to the idea that a small percentage of us will refuse, and they'll just go through with their manual search without much of a fuss. While you are being searched, it's usually pretty easy to mention in passing to that TSA agent that beyond the unknown potential cumulative damage to frequent flyers like myself who would be made to pass through this devices fifty to sixty times a year, they themselves are all possibly working in an unsafe environment, around devices which have been rushed to market without proper long-term testing and whose effects are in truth at best poorly understood; therefore those who remain close to them for long periods of time may be candidates to develop some future problems from this, themselves being - of course - very much included. Let that sink in...

I would expect these units to be removed from all but the most sensitive locations in the not-too-distant future, and become reserved for people who already are a likely security risk, rather than for them to remain in use with the general public. All it'll take is one workplace hazard lawsuit by a TSA screening staff's lawyer looking for the glory of a precedent-setting decision with their names attached to it.

When they passed seat belt laws in Michigan it was a "secondary offense" - you couldn't be pulled over for not wearing a seatbelt. Until they changed the law after about 10 years, once everyone had gotten used to it.

This assumes that the only terrorist threat is from Muslims, which is rather simplistic. Additionally, there is no way that a policy which is that discriminatory could be implemented without violating the constitution. It would be the equivalent of only requiring scanners for people in a certain skin colour range.

Additionally, there is no way that a policy which is that discriminatory could be implemented without violating the constitution.

I'm no constitutional lawyer... And I'd like to think that we're better than this... But I really wouldn't be all that surprised to see such an obviously discriminatory policy at least proposed, if not actually approved.

It would be the equivalent of only requiring scanners for people in a certain skin colour range.

Or kicking folks off planes because they look too Muslim?

Granted, it's a private corporation that's kicking people off of planes, so they don't really have to worry about constitutionality the way that the government does... B

About four years ago I went on a business trip. My then-wife had given me a small medallion with a chinese symbol on it. I could SEE when the cunt checked me in at the counter she noticed this medallion with a "funny foreign symbol on it" and lo and behold I was selected for a pat-down at security.

And as far as I know the cargo area of my plane was wide open to whoever the fuck wanted to get in there. That's my beef. This security theater shit is old. I did not have to take off my shoes in China or South Korea when boarding a plane (something I did 7 times in 10 days on a trip just a couple years back). It's all a sham.

We've been talked out of our privacy, our rights, and our dignity and now the elite of the world giggle and profit as we are made to parade naked in front of them like fucking zoo animals. Fuck them in the ear.

Actually I have a better idea. How about respecting everyone's freedom and human rights? No matter what their religion or skin color may be. Even when they look different from you. How about accepting that nothing in life is without risk? How about remembering that this country used to stand for liberty and freedom at any price. Bad things occasionally happen. That's life. It doesn't require changing the whole philosophy of our Republic from a Republic of Liberty to a Republic of Fear and Paranoia. We have

You do understand that since the TSA is searching for the rogue bottle of water or shampoo that is 3.1 oz instead of 3 oz they are letting guns, knives, and who knows what else through the checkpoints. You do understand there are multiple paths to get nefarious things on an airplane. You do realize that the passengers on the plane no longer believe that compliance is the proper response and will deal with threats onboard such as the shoe and underwear bombers.

The TSA ensuring your "safety" is an illusion. If you believe it, then good for you - Santa still comes down the chimney and eats the cookies you left out. The TSA is security theater -- it looks like they are busy doing useful things, but in the end it is all an act.

That's why El-Al asks if you if you have any sort of stuff carried on anyone else's behalf, and if you do, they check all your stuff.

Whenever I get asked the question "Has your luggage been out of your sight for any length of time or handled by other people" I really have to bite my tongue to stop saying "Yes.. the taxi driver loaded/unloaded my luggage and I haven't seen it for the last hour or so".. That would be the honest answer, but unfortunately that would be the wrong way to answer.

Try taking a classified military radio (in a properly marked courier bag with all the paperwork) through security. Between what the xray of the bag showed, his truthful answer to "did you pack this bag yourself" and his response to requests to open the bag (he correctly said that he couldn't do that nor allow it to happen) he spent the night with airport security and only got out when someone from the base personally came to get him and told the TSA that he had done everything correctly.

Try taking a classified military radio (in a properly marked courier bag with all the paperwork) through security.

I had a friend couriering a similar piece of equipment - he didn't have any problem at the airport because his security officer made the proper arrangements with whoever at the airport handles that stuff. In fact he got to short-cut all the TSA bullshit.

BUT, he was indian. American citizen, security clearance and all that, but very brown. Because the parcel was classified he had to keep it with him at all times. So every time he went to take a piss he had to bring it with him. The flight attendants ma

Whenever I get asked the question "Has your luggage been out of your sight for any length of time or handled by other people" I really have to bite my tongue to stop saying "Yes.. the taxi driver loaded/unloaded my luggage and I haven't seen it for the last hour or so".. That would be the honest answer, but unfortunately that would be the wrong way to answer.

Check out this story [telegraph.co.uk] It's about dwarves being put in suitcases and smuggled into coach holds to steal from other passengers cases during the journey.

What's to stop one putting a little something extra in one of the cases?

Right, because spitting on a book they consider sacred will fix things. Instead of having alternative ideas to outrage others, you should be outraged ourselves with our politicians. I wish WE do the obvious thing, which is refuse to go through a scanner every single time. The safety argument is bogus (if you do not get it, read Schneier website, or his newsletter on security), and even knowing that, we give up on our dignity, and submit ourselves and our children to be groped and radiated. I just cannot bel

I'v travelled in several muslim countries (Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Turkey) and saw people in each of those countries drinking alcohol. I also questioned a muslim colleague about things like this, and his off-handed remark was that he would "pay for it in the next life".

When it comes down to it, the average people are the same all over the world - they'll pay lip service to appear to be doing what the are supposed to do, but if no one notices, then they'll just do what they want to do.

When it comes down to it, the average people are the same all over the world - they'll pay lip service to appear to be doing what the are supposed to do, but if no one notices, then they'll just do what they want to do.

When it comes down to it, the average people are the same all over the world - they'll pay lip service to appear to be doing what the are supposed to do, but if no one notices, then they'll just do what they want to do.Those aren't really the people we're concerned with.

And neither are the muslims that are rocking up to airports and flying to business meetings across the US

I was told by a Muslim that the actual ruling in the Koran is that you should not "allow alcohol to rule you". His interpretation was that he should not get drunk, and was quite happy to drink a single beer.

I was once in an airport queue with an American friend who had, somehow, managed to bring a can of CS spray into a country where any sort of offensive weapon is illegal. CS spray is illegal for anything but police use over here. You will be arrested just for having it on you, whether you use it or not, whether it's for "self-defence" or not. It's just an instantaneous "arrest me".

They'd managed to bring it from the US, through all the "heightened" airport security post-9-11, onto a plane, into my country, through my airport security, carry it around London for several weeks in her handbag (including through museum entry security checks, public transport etc), and only because her friends spotted it when she opened her bag IN A LONDON AIRPORT as she headed home - specifically, the queue to security scanning - that anyone knew she'd had it.

In London, carrying CS spray is an instant arrest that would pretty much provoke an immediate armed response anyway, especially in an airport which is about the only place the average Brit would ever see live weapons in real-life (carried by the policemen).

We quietly and hastily had her dispose of it into the wheelie-bins used for over-size deodorants etc. (as you say, they're just a large, unchecked "trash can" full of material that you're NOT allowed to take on a plane because of it's contents or size, sitting in the middle of an airport foyer) and passed through the airport unhindered onto our destination.

God knows what happens in that bin. The incineration must be fabulous when they do it, because it could literally contain anything at all. And, as you point out, prime target to drop a couple of things in, along with a dozen or a thousand "innocent" items that your accomplices can put in there earlier in the day and be pretty much untraceable which one caused the explosion. Right by the entrance to a security queue which can take hours to pass through and contain thousands of passengers sounds pretty much perfect - and the risk is just that of dropping someone off at an airport and them dropping something in a bin designed for things to be dropped into anonymously, because those bins are not "airside".

I know your post meant to highlight how bad the TSA is, but it really pointed out the UK is much, much worse because you live in fear of women that might want to protect themselves from physically stronger assailants.

Yes, this is a good example. Personally, I never put my toiletries in a clear plastic bag when I go through airport security. I use the original containers, regarless of size, and keep them in my toiletry bag in my carryon like a normal person should. I put the carryon bag through the x-ray scanner. 9 times out of 10 I get the bag back at the other end without issue. In fact, the only place I have been stopped is at LAX, and they just took one of the oversize bottles, leaving the rest.

why bother bringing the plane down when there are large lines of people waiting in line to go through the security checkpoint that are all vulnerable to attack

Because terrorists want western society to become a police state, or dictatorship, or whatever isn't free. Their goal is to incite fear of freedom, and to make society beg their government to make them less free (in exchange, of course, for something like security).

Because terrorists want western society to become a police state, or dictatorship, or whatever isn't free. Their goal is to incite fear of freedom,

Bullshit. Al-qaeda et al, don't care what kind of government you have at home. You're all infidels, you're going to hell regardless. They want to influence your policy in the Middle East. Either simply to make you butt out and let them install fundamentalist governments; or to provoke you into such violent overreactions that you are thrown out by your former allies. That's what they want, they don't give a fuck about you and your civil rights either way. Just getting your army out of their way is their aim.

Sure, after that they'd like to convert the whole world to Islam, by the sword if necessary, but that's for the next generation.

We expose people to X-rays for non-medical reasons all the time, just not in very large quantities. Like stepping outside.

Therac-25 illustrates that design failures can be fatal. While that could be true in an X-ray scanner (it would take about 5 minutes to expose you to a dangerous, not lethal, amount of radiation in such a scanner), it's also true in, for example, the airplane you're about to get on.

The point is that these numbers are better than the numbers that justify the existence of the scanners. What cost/risk/benefit analysis has been done to demonstrate that these scanners are useful? The answer is none.